SBK, Lausitzring, Davies: "Mixed day today, we hope tomorrow is better"

A return to the track that was complicated by adverse weather in the afternoon, ruining the plans of the SBK riders. After the long summer break, it was important to lap as much as possible to get back into the swing of things, but rain in the afternoon's session complicated things. Team Ducati riders closed in 3rd and 5th place with Chaz Davies and Marco Melandri.

Davies set his best time in the morning, a 1’37.526 , enough to secure third place in both FP1 and the combined standings, +0.354 from the front. Marco's day was more complicated but, despite being slowed in the first session by an electrical problem, he was able to climb back up in FP2, managing to make the most of the limited dry track time and setting a 1’37.858 (+0.686) before the rain came down.

"It was a mixed day" - states Davies after second practice - "It feels like we just started to get going after the summer break but FP2 was a bit anti-climactic. I was hoping to get into my stride but we started the afternoon session with quite a different setup and I didn’t feel too happy on bike so we decided to go back to our base. Then the rain came. Here at Lausitz you never know what the track conditions will be, so it was important to head out on rain tires but, after a couple of laps, I realized it was more dry than wet so it wasn’t too useful to ride aside from being to able to understand where the wet and dry spots are. Hopefully, we’ll get a more consistent track tomorrow. I think that, once we go back to our base and put a fresher engine on, we can definitely improve. We always had a good pace here.”​​​​​​​

There's optimism in "camp Melandri", despite the morning's issues: “It’s been a positive day but not an easy one for sure, because we suffered an electrical problem that kept us in the pits for most of FP1 and in the afternoon we were only able to do a couple of runs in dry conditions. Still, we managed to cut the gap significantly and I want to thank my crew because they did a really good job. I feel better on the bike compared with the tests, which were still very useful to get acquainted with the track. I like the layout, but the tarmac is really bumpy and it becomes dangerous in wet conditions, especially in the last corner. Tomorrow, we need to improve especially in the third split to make a good Superpole, as it’s not easy to pass on this circuit. I want to stay close to our rivals, then anything can happen during the race.”